Bro. R.In what sense do you
consider Christ our substitute?
Since you believe that when the
Saints are made immortal they give
up their flesh life as Christ gave up
his, they needed no substitute.
And
since the sinner will die the second
death it cannot be that he has a
substitute.

Ans.I seldom use the word substitute now because it does not occur
in our English translation of the
Bible, I prefer to use the bible words purchase and ransom which mean exactly
the same thing.
All men were
sinners through Adam's disobedience.
The seeds of sin and its
result death had been sown in our
race and we daily became more
weak and sinful.
All must die, and the process"dying thou shalt die"
is in progress.
There is no way by
which we can keep ourselves alive,
much less make ourselves alive when
we become entirely dead.
We can
never justify ourselves to life, consequently
can never live again.

At this juncture Jesus steps inDoes he set aside the Father's law
which had condemned all the sinful
race to death?
No, but recognizing
death as the righteous penalty of
sin; he paid that penalty for us.
Being, "without sin," "holy," "undefiled,"
he was not liable to the
penalty of sindeath.
He had a
perfect right to continue his earthly
life forever; but instead he gave it
for, i.e., instead of ours that had
been forfeited.
So that now God can
give back perfect natural life to the
whole race, and he declares that he
will do so in His "due time."
Thus
did Jesus make himself "a propitiation[satisfaction] for our sins, and
not for ours only, but also for the
sins of the whole world, so that, as death passed upon all the human
race through Adam, life is to be restored
to all in "the times of restitution
of all things," because Jesus
Christ "gave himself a ransom for all
men."

Jesus informs His church of the
purchase and tells them that soon
all will be restored, but offers to admit
them to the Spiritual plane of
life if they will now freely give up
the natural lifemake a sacrifice of
it.
They could not offer a sacrifice of
their natural life until it was purchased
for them, because they were
already dead.
Jesus purchased our
lives, then hands them to us saying:
Do what you wish with themhere
is the great prize, if you crucify
yourselves.
And we do so gladly
for the prize set before us in the
GospelFor ye were bought with a
price, even the precious blood of
Christ.

What about the sinner who will
die the second death?
We answer,
the fact that he dies the second death
on account of his own sins is clear
proof that he must have been
ransomed from the first death which
was the result of Adam's sin.